POPxo Power Women List 2022: Falguni Nayar, The Wealthiest Self-Made Woman In India

The Businesswoman Extraordinaire

In 2012, Falguni Nayar quit her 20-year-long investment banking career to start Nykaa, India’s biggest cosmetics e-tailer. It was a leap of faith for this IIM Ahmedabad graduate. Fast forward to 2021—in less than a decade of Nykaa’s inception, Nayar transformed the brand into a billion-dollar juggernaut. With a ₹5,352-crore IPO and legions of buyers, Nayar is playing a long game. Her phenomenal success is a testament to the fact that it is never too late to start afresh. As of November 26, 2020, Nayar’s net worth stands at $7.03billion (₹52,794 crores). She is now India’s richest self-made woman billionaire.

With Nayar at the helm, Nykaa has steered India’s beauty industry in the right direction and has catalysed its growth. Emboldened by Nykaa’s roaring success, Nayar started Nykaa’s own beauty brand in 2015. Nykaa then ventured into fashion retail in 2018 and launched a private fashion label in 2019. For this entrepreneur extraordinaire, it is just the beginning. She is now looking at diversifying her empire with a retail expansion and 300 brick and mortar stores across 100 cities. Nayar has paved the way for the generation of women entrepreneurs ahead to follow and take inspiration from. This true visionary looks at her wins as milestones and is always eyeing the next big thing.

Power Move

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic left a dent on most industries, Nykaa took the hit too. In April 2020 alone, a month’s loss was higher than the total loss Nykaa had incurred in a year. Undeterred by the setback, Nayar started preparing for an IPO around the same time. Within a year, she bounced back with the company’s smashing initial public offering (IPO) in November 2021. Nayar got the company registered at a valuation higher than most legacy brands in India with a ₹5,352-crore IPO. A roaring success, it was oversubscribed nearly 82.5 times. The same day, Nykaa’s market capitalisation hit the ₹1 lakh crore mark and she became India’s richest self-made woman billionaire with a 52.56 per cent stake in the company. In the past decade, Nayar has emerged as a trailblazer in the truest sense of the word. She is proof that sky’s the limit when you have an appetite for risk and unyielding trust in yourself.  

The POPxo Power Women List is an annual list that celebrates incredible Indian women from diverse domains who make power moves that have a real impact. With The POPxo Power Women List 2022, we celebrate 22 phenomenal women. To see the entire list, click here.